News Release: Sociologist Discusses His Book, 'When Killing Is a Crime,' for Colloquium

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 3, 2008
CONTACT: Kathleen McPartland
Tel: 530-898-4260

Sociologist Discusses His Book, ‘When Killing Is a Crime,’ for Colloquium

Sociologist Tony Waters, California State University, Chico, will be the keynote speaker for the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences Colloquium on Monday, Dec. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the Bell Memorial Union Auditorium. He will talk about ideas from his recently published book, “When Killing is a Crime.”

Waters said that his book is about how different societies have viewed killing and murder in different times and places. “The book looks at both the micro-sociological level of the violent act itself, as well as how a society responds to killing,” said Waters. “It draws on a wide-range of examples, including urban gangs in Washington, DC, the Salem witchcraft trials, Wild West barroom brawls, Albanian blood feuds, and many others. In terms of scale, the book ranges from killing on the inter-personal scale resulting from inter-personal combat, to killing organized by governments.”

Sociologist Matthew T. Lee, University of Akron, wrote that the book is “Entertaining enough to hold the attention of undergraduates, and analytical enough to be used by graduate students and scholars.”

The complete news release is available online.

Archived under News on December 3, 2008